Rule 6 for Flourishing: Value the Unexpected

In many areas of my life, I haven’t been one to go with the flow.  I’m more the dam builder type.  When I go on vacation, alone or with someone else, I want to plan most every minute.  If driving across the country, I want to reserve a motel room for each night before I leave.  You can see that I don’t like to leave much to chance or the unexpected.

Yet, in other areas of my life, I am quite content to have things change.  I have always done presentation work collaboratively and if one of us two or three wants to change what we are going to present or the way we are going to present it, I can hang loose and turn on a dime.  In fact, in this realm, I like unpredictability.

My husband is not a planner and I’ve adapted quite happily to his preference for choosing our activities at the last minute (weekend plans usually).  This has its downside.  We end up doing the same things most weekends, but we enjoy our dinner and movies on Friday night, and family gatherings on Sunday.

There is another, more serious meaning to this rule, however.  What this asks us to do is not only to value the unexpected when it comes along, but to actively seek it.  This morning I was reading a book review in The New York Times about the education crisis in this country.  The reviewer said of the author that his reformist colleagues could be accused of the same kind of “groupthink” of which they accuse their avowed enemy, the Teachers Union.  We must not only be open to others’ points of view  (something few of us seem to be these days), but we must approach these points of view and the people who hold them  with curiosity and appreciation.